


Surface-Level

by Kikithehousemoose



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: Gen, Spoilers for after your first run, Thanatos/Zagreus and Zagreus/Megaera are alluded to, did you know that ambrosia delight are those soft iced sugar cookies, look at the icon, no beta we write like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:54:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27345403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kikithehousemoose/pseuds/Kikithehousemoose
Summary: Eurydice was the closest Zagreus felt to the surface for a long time. He wasn’t sure which one he longed for more: the surface, or kindness.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 64





	Surface-Level

**Author's Note:**

> Not entirely happy with the title, might change it.
> 
> I finally got Hades and reached Eurydice for the first time in my game and I had to pause the game to start writing this. Call me Orpheus cause I love my wife.

Eurydice was the closest Zagreus felt to the surface for a long time.

Even the deceitful fields of Elysium were so close yet so far from his goal, just close enough to tempt him with the prospect of freedom before Theseus and Asterius spit him right back out into the Styx. Sometimes Elysium proved an excuse to force Thanatos to take a break from work but at the end of the day it was usually where his thusfar failed escape attempts met their end.

In Asphodel, though... 

The first time he had met Eurydice, he had felt nearly intoxicated. Dumbfounded, warm, dizzied by a sudden calmness after a particularly chaotic fight that had left him more burned than bloodied. He had taken the boat of mystery, hoping it would lead him to some much-needed health or a powerful boon, but instead he was met with.... singing. Light, lively, beautiful singing, here in the middle of the Underworld. 

It was unlike anything he’d ever heard. Even Orpheus, for all his angelic qualities, had always sounded more mournful than anything. His tales of godly affairs or great mortal works were always tinged with an ash-sodden sadness that echoed like a dirge throughout the halls of Hades. Fitting, sure, but Zagreus had never realized that music could be anything else. 

He had never seen a nymph before, either, not in person. Her body curves and sways in some unseen breeze, the leaves upon her head gold like Zagreus’s, yet somehow much more vibrant, as if sunlight were still shining down upon them. She was made of color, and she was sharing it with any soul around who was desperate for some hint of life in this overgrown, desolate place. Her voice trilled with _kindness._ Kindness the likes of which Zagreus had never seen, except maybe in the gentle sympathies of Achilles. It was kindness that only mortals could posses, one that was typically stripped from them upon death. And yet...

Her song had stayed with him for the remainder of that run. There was something so alluring about it, something that made him want to settle down and take a deep breath. Something that made him feel like he was already up there, feeling the grass nip at his legs, the fresh sunlight rejuvenating him, the call of whatever sort of creatures lived among those strong, towering trees. 

He wasn’t sure which one he longed for more: the surface, or kindness. He wanted to find his mother, of course, but once he did he expected that he would want.... well, _that_. An embodiment of spring, of livelihood, of the appreciation for simple pleasures. Is that what he was going to find? What if there wasn’t anybody else like Eurydice? What if his mother was cold and dismissive, just as much as Nyx, as Hades? 

“Did you ever want to have kids?” he asks one time, legs spread out in front of him on the ground. He was dashing a lot on this run, and it always landed him in trouble with the magma. “In life, I mean.”

Her laugh feels like it heals him, even if he knows it doesn’t. She puts a hand on her hip, her head turning. “Oh, no. Might have one day, maybe, but I’m not sure I would’ve been the type for it. Besides, I try to help out everyone I meet, not just my own kids. Speaking of... what’ll it be, Your Royal Majesty?”

“Just Zagreus is fine, really” he tries to insist, knowing it won’t get him anywhere. “Uh.. the porridge this time, please. All this time eating these pomegranates and I’ve never had anything like it.”

“I sure hope not. It’s my own recipe. Though I guess if anyone else set up a catering operation down here, they would have my respect. You just sit right there and I’ll have it in a second.”

“Thanks.”

Eurydice could never be his mother. Neither of them wanted her to be. As it turns out, she wasn’t the surface either.

The surface was cold. At first he thought the chill in his bones was lingering poison from the way it sought to rattle him. He’d learn in time that the cold was not merely the surface’s doing; it was the brutality of Demeter, who swore so callously that her blights had killed far, far more people than war. 

The surface was also beautiful. It was every bit as magnificent as he had hoped; even the burning of his feet couldn’t seem to disrupt the serenity of the earth that he tread. It felt like it was all for _him_ \-- the salty air, the painted sky, the squeak of birdsong. The feeling that there was nothing above or beside him, not even Olympus, not even the ever-steadied hands of Atlas. There was only what was behind and what was ahead; the rest of the world, cold and alien as it may be, engulfed him in a way that left him woozy. 

But no. For all of the beauty of the surface, that was not what Eurydice embodied. After all, the surface did not welcome him.

It took him a while to have that revelation. It was his.... gods, what was it now. 85th run? 89th? 

He was tired. He was irritated. He had gotten lazy. He had lost to _Meg_ only a few hours before this and had thanked whoever was in charge of scheduling now that his next face-off had been against Tisiphone. He would much rather get called a murderer than have his probably-maybe-not-anymore ex-girlfriend point out that he wasn’t trying his best. 

He’d made it to Asphodel, somehow, and found himself once again stepping off of the boat to Eurydice’s carefree song. He closed his eyes, careful to not sway too far into the lava, and sprinted up to her designated corner.

“Hey there!” she greets, giving him a glance as he plops himself down. “You’re not looking too good there, Hades kid. This place starting to wear you down?”

He sighs, closing his eyes, head resting against the apparently magma-impervious stone. “I suppose. Actually, you might even say it’s the other way around. This place, the Underworld, I may not _like_ it but at least it’s all quite intimately familiar by now. It’s the... other bit that I’m having trouble with, honestly.”

“What, the surface?” She never failed to be an excellent conversation partner. She stirs something in her pot, still giving Zagreus her attention despite not looking at him. She sighs, her eyes pooling with memory. “Don’t get me wrong, the surface can be anything you want it to be. But it’s also everything you _don’t_ want it to be. We’re all left to the whims of the gods up there, fending for ourselves, begging or scrapping for anything we can get. I feel freer down here in Hell than I ever did up there. For the most part.”

Zag tilts his head up to her, opening his eyes out of respect. His green one gazes at her sympathetically, his red one only barely peering out from the shadow cast by his hair. “It’s... it’s just not _fair_. Getting up there was supposed to be the end of it all, a start to my new life, all of that. Instead it’s just.... more of _this_. I was ready for the pain and suffering, I still am. It’s just that nothing down here could have prepared me for having everything I wanted right in my grasp, only to lose it over and over again. To have such a short amount of time compared to all the time I spend working to get there.”

Eurydice’s eyes meet his. For the first time in a while, he feels heard. Understood. She turns back to the pot for a moment, wordlessly passing him a tray of fresh cookies. He takes them readily, savoring the way they felt like what he imagined it would mean to eat a cloud. 

“Life’s not fair, honey” she says as warmly as she can “Neither is death. It’s the little things that you’ve got to live for, not just the big ones.” A small smile quirks on the edge of her lips. “I take it you’d know all about fighting for the little things, wouldn’t you?”

“ _Hey_.” 

It’s her laugh that does it. The giggle that comes from her in response is enough to give him pause, to make something click in his brain. His suspicions had been right the first time. He wasn’t doing this to get to the surface. He wasn’t even entirely doing this to get to his mother. It could have been anyone up there and he would still fight for a few minutes of kindness. To be able to be cradled in the arms of mortal love. 

It wasn’t something that Thanatos or Megaera could give him. It wasn’t something Aphrodite could give him, or even Cerberus. But it wasn’t unique to his mother either. He had felt it in small doses this entire time; from Achilles. From the shades. From Asterius. From Eurydice. 

He closes his eyes again, ambrosia’s sweetness still tanging his tongue. In a moment, her song resumes, picking up as if she had been singing this whole time. The continuation of her happiness, uninterrupted, refusing to be undone by the trouble that came her way.... 

It was just what he needed. 


End file.
